This article explores the main similarities and differences between Derek Parfit’s notion of imprecise comparability and a related notion I have proposed of parity. I argue that the main difference between imprecise comparability and parity can be understood by reference to ‘the standard view’. The standard view claims that 1) differences between cardinally ranked items can always be measured by a scale of units of the relevant value, and 2) all rankings proceed in terms of the trichotomy of ‘better than’, (...) ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’. Imprecise comparability, which can be understood in terms of the more familiar notions of cardinality and incommensurability, rejects only the first claim while parity rejects both claims of the standard view. -/- I then argue that insofar as those attracted to imprecise comparability assume that all rankings are trichotomous, as Parfit appears to, the view should be rejected. This is because imprecise equality is not a form of equality but is a sui generis ‘fourth’ basic way in which items can be ranked. We should, I argue, understand imprecise equality as parity, and imprecise comparability as entailing ‘tetrachotomy’ – that if two items are comparable, one must better than, worse than, equal to, or on a par with the other. Thus those attracted to the idea that cardinality can be imprecise should abandon trichotomy and accept parity and tetrachotomy instead. -/- Finally, I illustrate the difference between Parfit’s trichotomous notion of imprecise comparability and parity by examining how each notion might be employed in different solutions to the problem posed by the Repugnant Conclusion in population ethics. I suggest that parity provides the arguably more ecumenical solution to the problem. (shrink)

How should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability problems has reached an impasse at which it is hard to make any progress. To advance the discussion we (...) suggest a new classification of comparability problems that focuses on the problems they cause for practical reasoning. (shrink)

Two options are ‘incommensurate’ when neither is better than the other, but they are not equally good. Typically, we will say that one option is better in some ways, and the other in others, but neither is better ‘all things considered’. It is tempting to think that incommensurability is vagueness—that it is (perhaps) indeterminate which is better—but this ‘vagueness view’ of incommensurability has not proven popular. I set out the vagueness view and its implications in more detail, and argue that (...) it can explain most of the puzzling features of incommensurability. This argument proceeds without appeal to John Broome’s ‘collapsing principle’. (shrink)

How should scarce health-related resources be allocated? This paper argues that values that apply to these decisions fail to always fully determine what we should do. Health maximization and allocation-according-to-need are suggested as two values that should be part of a general theory of how to allocate health-related resources. The “small improvement argument” is used to argue that it is implausible that one alternative is always better, worse, or equal to another alternative with respect to these values. Approaches that rely (...) on these values are thus incomplete. To deal with this, it is suggested that we ought to use incomplete theories in a two-step process. Such a process first discards ineligible alternatives, and, second, uses reasons grounded in collective commitments to identify a unique, best alternative in the remaining set. (shrink)

Presenting the first comprehensive, in-depth study of hyperintensionality, this book equips readers with the basic tools needed to appreciate some of current and future debates in the philosophy of language, semantics, and metaphysics. After introducing and explaining the major approaches to hyperintensionality found in the literature, the book tackles its systematic connections to normativity and offers some contributions to the current debates. The book offers undergraduate and graduate students an essential introduction to the topic, while also helping professionals in related (...) fields get up to speed on open research-level problems. (shrink)

A notorious debate in the ethics of healthcare rationing concerns whether to address rationing decisions with substantial principles or with a procedural approach. One major argument in favour of procedural approaches is that substantial principles are indeterminate so that we can reasonably disagree about how to apply them. To deal with indeterminacy, we need a just decision process. In this paper I argue that it is a mistake to abandon substantial principles just because they are indeterminate. It is true that (...) reasonable substantial principles designed to deal with healthcare rationing can be expected to be indeterminate. Yet, the indeterminacy is only partial. In some situations we can fully determine what to do in light of the principles, in some situations we cannot. The conclusion to draw from this fact is not that we need to develop procedural approaches to healthcare rationing, but rather that we need a more complex theory in which both substantial principles and procedural approaches are needed. (shrink)

The principle of need—the idea that resources should be allocated according to need—is often invoked in priority setting in the health care sector. In this article, I argue that a reasonable principle of need must be indeterminate, and examine three different ways that this can be dealt with: appendicizing the principle with further principles, imposing determinacy, or empowering decision makers. I argue that need must be conceptualized as a composite property composed of at least two factors: health shortfall and capacity (...) to benefit. When one examines how the different factors relate to each other, one discovers that this is sometimes indeterminate. I illustrate this indeterminacy in this article by applying the small improvement argument. If the relation between the factors are always determinate, the comparative relation changes by a small adjustment. Yet, if two needs are dissimilar but of seemingly equal magnitude, the comparative relation does not change by a small adjustment of one of the factors. I then outline arguments in favor of each of the three strategies for dealing with indeterminacy, but also point out that all strategies have significant shortcomings. More research is needed concerning how to deal with this indeterminacy, and the most promising path seems to be to scrutinize the position of the principle of need among a plurality of relevant principles for priority setting in the health care sector. (shrink)

In other work I have argued that items can be on a par, where being on a par is a fourth, basic, sui generis value relation beyond the usual trichotomy of ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’. In this paper, I aim to marshal non-technical, intuitive arguments for this view. First, I try to cast doubt on the leading source of intuitive resistance to parity, the conviction that if two items are comparable, one must be better than the other, (...) worse than it, or they must be equally good. Second, I explain how parity can arise by appealing to an uncontroversial distinction between quantity and quality of value. I propose both sufficient conditions for parity and a nontechnical model of the notion. My overall aim is to bring into view a simple and intuitive picture of value – and more generally of normativity – in which parity plays a significant role. (shrink)

This thesis explores whether the three standard value relations, “better than”, “worse than” and “equally as good”, exhaust the possibilities in which things can relate with respect to their value. Or more precisely, whether there are examples in which one of these relations is not instantiated. There are cases in which it is not obvious that one of these relations does obtain; these are referred to as “hard cases of comparison”. These hard cases of comparison become interesting, since if it (...) not the case that the standard three value relations obtains in these cases then the three standard relations do not exhaust the possibility of instantiated value relations. It is argued that for some of the hard cases of comparison, the standard relations determinately obtain. For some it is indeterminate, due to vagueness, which of the three relations obtains, but it is determinate that one of them obtains. Thereafter it is argued that the influential Collapsing Argument fails in ruling out other accounts of the hard cases of comparison. Since one cannot depend on the Collapsing Argument in order to conclude that all items are related by the standard three relations, the investigation continues. It is argued that none of the hard cases of comparison are cases of incomparability. Furthermore, none of them are cases of a fourth basic positive value relation such as “parity”. Consequently, for all the hard cases of comparison one of the standard value relations holds, although sometimes we do not know which one and sometimes it is indeterminate which one holds. This means that there is no reason to assume that one of the standard three value relations does not hold between items we are comparing. This is followed by a brief discussion about the normative consequences of this result. The thesis ends with four different appendices in which related topics are discussed. (shrink)

On parity views of mere addition if someone is added to the world at a range of well-being levels – or ‘neutral range’ – leaving existing people unaffected, addition is on a par with the initial situation. Two distinct parity views – ‘rough equality’ and fittingattitudes views – defend the ‘intuition of neutrality’. The first can be interpreted or adjusted so that it can rebut John Broome’s objection that the neutral range is wide. The two views respond in distinct ways (...) to two of Broome’s other objections. Both views can, nonetheless, be plausibly defended against these objections. (shrink)

This article shows that introducing the positive comparative relation parity only helps one block so‐called “Spectrum Arguments” in order to avoid their unsavoury implications if one specifies parity in a specific way with respect to its persistence. The article illustrates how parity must both admit of persistency and be weakly non‐persistent for parity to block Spectrum Arguments, and identifies some consequences of that discovery for the general debate on Spectrum Arguments, value theory and comparability problems.

This paper argues that accepting incommensurability can be a useful step for developing attractive hybrid theories to how to distribute scarce health-related resources. If one provides opportunity for distributive options to be incommensurable with respect to substantive criteria, one can hold on to substantive criteria while also providing room for decision processes to play a significant role. The paper also argues that the strategy of accepting incommensurability is preferable to the strategy of having substantive criteria establish sets of options that (...) are equally, explains why incommensurability gives us reason to go hybrid, and argues that reasons grounded in decision processes have properties that make them appropriate as “tiebreakers” in choice situations characterized by incommensurability. (shrink)

The paper presents main conceptual distinctions underlying much of modern philosophical thinking about value. The introductory Section 1 is followed in Section 2 by an outline of the contrast between non-relational value and relational value. In Section 3, the focus is on the distinction between final and non-final value as well as on different kinds of final value. In Section 4, we consider value relations, such as being better/worse/equally good/on a par. Recent discussions suggest that we might need to considerably (...) extend traditional taxonomies of value relations. (shrink)

According to the mixed lexicographic/additive account of ‘better than’ and similar aggregative value comparatives like ‘healthier than’, values are multidimensional and different aspects of a value are aggregated into an overall assessment in a lexicographic way, based on an ordering of value aspects. It is argued that this theory can account for an acceptable definition of Chang’s notion of parity and that it also offers a solution to Temkin’s and Rachels’s Spectrum Cases without giving up the transitivity of overall betterness. (...) Formal details and proofs are provided in an “Appendix”. (shrink)

This paper addresses how to think about the permissibility of introducing deadweight costs on candidate recipients of goods in order to attain better outcomes. The paper introduces some distinctions between different kinds of value dimensions that should be taken into account when such judgements are made and draws from the literature on comparisons across different value dimensions in order to canvas what sort of situations one might arguably face when evaluating ordeals. In light of the distinctions drawn and the possibilities (...) canvassed, the paper proceeds to outline what circumstances indicate which of the possible situations one is in. (shrink)

Comment pouvons-nous analyser des relations de valeur non standards, comme la parité axiologique, en termes d’attitudes appropriées? Wlodek Rabinowicz suggère que deux choses sont à parité si et seulement si il est à la fois permissible de préférer l’une à l’autre et permissible d’avoir la préférence contraire. Dans un article récent, Johan Gustafsson soutient toutefois que l’analyse de Rabinowicz viole un principe de symétrie entre valeurs et préférences, selon lequel il existe pour toute relation de valeur une relation de préférence (...) correspondante (et vice-versa). À la lumière de ce principe, Gustafsson propose une analyse alternative, selon laquelle deux choses sont à parité si et seulement si il est requis d’entretenir ces choses en parité préférentielle. Dans cet article, j’examine en détail les arguments avancés par Gustafsson contre l’analyse de Rabinowicz et je montre qu’aucun d’eux n’est convaincant. (shrink)

In this article, monist values are expressed as preferences like in economics and decision making. On the basis of this formalization, various ways of defining value disagreement of agents within a group are investigated. Twelve notions of categorical value disagreement are laid out. Since these are too coarse-grained for many purposes, known distance-based approaches like Kendall’s Tau and Spearman’s footrule are generalized from linear orders to preorders and position-sensitive variants are developed. The account is further generalized to allow for agents (...) with incomplete information. The article ends with a discussion of known limitations of preference-based accounts of values and how these might be overcome by accounting for parity and essential incompleteness. It is also shown that one intuitively compelling notion of disagreement does not give rise to a proper distance measure. (shrink)

This article articulates and defends a dissolution of the so-called repugnant conclusion, which focuses on the notion of life worth living figuring both in Parfit's formulation of the repugnant conclusion and in most responses to such a conclusion. The proposed dissolution demonstrates that the notion of life worth living is plagued by multiple ambiguities and that these ambiguities, in turn, hamper meaningful debate about both the issue of whether the repugnant conclusion can be avoided and the issue of whether the (...) repugnant conclusion is actually repugnant. This result does not exclude that some modified versions of the repugnant conclusion may yield valuable insights about the value of populations and the tenability of different axiological/ethical theories. Still, if the proposed dissolution is correct, then the repugnant conclusion rests on an ill-defined notion and we lack the information required to assess the merits of the repugnant conclusion. (shrink)

This paper introduces incommensurability, its potential relevance to population-level bioethics, and thecontributions to the special issue. It provides an overview of recent research on incommensurability, outlines somereasons to believe in its possibility and relevance, and presents some problems and opportunities that arise onceone accepts that incommensurability is possible.

Ruth Chang and Joseph Raz have both drawn far-reaching consequences for agency from the phenomenon of incommensurability. After criticizing their arguments, I outline an alternative view: if incommensurability is vagueness, then there are no substantial implications for agency, except perhaps a limited form of naturalistic voluntarism if our reasons are provided by desires.

Elga : 1–10, 2010) has argued that, even when no particular subjective probability is required by one’s evidence, perfectly rational people will have sharp subjective probabilities. Otherwise, they would be rationally permitted to knowingly turn down some sure gains. I argue that it is likewise true that, even when we do not possess enough practical reasons for a sharp evaluation, perfectly rational people will have sharp subjective values. Those who would be most inclined to reject this argument are those who (...) claim that we are rationally required by either our beliefs that objective values are unsharp or by our own ‘real’ values to have unsharp subjective values. Regarding the former claim, I show that we need not believe that all objective values are sharp to rationally have unsharp subjective values. Regarding the latter claim, I conclude that sharpened subjective values must be ‘real’ because otherwise perfect rationality would be impossible in principle. (shrink)

Moral life often presents us with trade-offs between the sufferings of some individuals and the sufferings of others. Researchers may need to consider, for example, whether the suffering imposed on animals by a certain line of medical experimentation justifies the relief that the resulting discoveries may bring to others. Often in such cases, the suffering of some individuals is incomparable with—that is neither greater than nor less than nor equal to—the suffering of others. While this complicates moral decision-making across species, (...) it does not undermine it. (shrink)